Musings of a Baby Boomer….

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Thursday Thoughts

Wing Ding It
I’m not a huge fan of traditional buffalo chicken wings. You know, the ones that are deep fried. I certainly don’t hate them, but they would never be my first choice of a meal. However, I actually like oven-roasted wings or grilled wings very much, especially when they are whole wings. The problem is, I never think they are crispy enough. So yesterday morning, when I went through my emails, I came across one of the blogs that I follow that featured a recipe for crispy oven-roasted chicken wings. The recipe caught my eye because she made them completely different from the way I have done them in the past. She baked hers for three hours at a very low temperature, whereas I bake mine at a fairly high temperature for about an hour. Here was the result…..

My verdict? They were really very good. One of the differences in the recipe is that the wings were baked on a rack instead of directly on the sheet pan. I think it was this baking style that made the most difference. I’m not as convinced of the need to run the oven for three hours at a low temperature.

HomesickI’m in that rare period of time when I don’t have a library book to read. One of the best things about reading e-books is that I always have other books lined up even if the books I’ve reserved from the library dry up temporarily. I’ve been re-reading the Mitford series, the stories of Father Tim and all of the characters from the fictitious North Carolina village. The New Song, however, takes the good reverend and his wife Cynthia to the fictitious island of Whitecap, North Carolina. I miss the old gang, but their experiences in Whitecap are fun also. At about the halfway point of the book, both Father Tim and Cynthia experience something with which I am familiar. Though the island is beautiful and they love their new life and new friends, their hearts are desperately homesick for their family and friends back in Mitford. Reading about their homesickness made me recollect the months Bill and I were gone during our big adventure – three months in Europe. About halfway through our trip, round about the Fourth of July, this traveler became so homesick I thought my heart would break. The only thing that saved me was seeing the comments on the blog that I wrote documenting our trip. We traveled in 2008, and though that doesn’t seem that long ago, it still wasn’t as easy to communicate electronically as it is now. Plus we didn’t always have internet service. Nowadays, I don’t think I’d be quite as homesick.

Hand-Me-Downs
Bill set up his new office space yesterday morning, and I got the leftovers. In reality, I’m going to give the desk a chance. My situation is much more appropriate for this type of desk since I don’t have to worry about a printer and other big equipment. My hope is that every night I can tuck my computer into its little space and kiss it goodnight, leaving a neat-looking den. We’ll see.